ath, shall be drawn before thee, swift as the rack driven by the north
wind along the blotted splendour of the sky.

Weed-grown fields, desolate towns, the wild approach of riderless horses
had now become habitual to my eyes; nay, sights far worse, of the unburied
dead, and human forms which were strewed on the road side, and on the steps
of once frequented habitations, where,

Through the flesh that wastes away
Beneath the parching sun, the whitening bones
Start forth, and moulder in the sable dust.[2]

Sights like these had become--ah, woe the while! so familiar, that we had
ceased to shudder, or spur our stung horses to sudden speed, as we passed
them. France in its best days, at least that part of France through which
we travelled, had been a cultivated desert, and the absence of enclosures,
of cottages, and even of peasantry, was saddening to a traveller from sunny
Italy, or busy England. Yet the towns were frequent and lively, and the
cordial politeness and ready smile of the wooden-shoed peasant restored
good humour to the splenetic. Now, the old woman sat no more at the door
with her distaff--the lank beggar no longer asked charity in
courtier-like phrase; nor on holidays did the peasantry thread with slow
grace the mazes of the dance. Silence, melancholy bride of death, went in
procession with him from town to town through the spacious region.

We arrived at Fontainebleau, and speedily prepared for the reception of our
friends. On mustering our numbers for the night, three were found missing.
When I enquired for them, the man to whom I spoke, uttered the word
"plague," and fell at my feet in convulsions; he also was infected. There
were hard faces around me; for among my troop were sailors who had crossed
the line times unnumbered, soldiers who, in Russia and far America, had
suffered famine, cold and danger, and men still sterner-featured, once
nightly depredators in our over-grown metropolis; men bred from their
cradle to see the whole machine of society at work for their destruction. I
looked round, and saw upon the faces of all horror and despair written in
glaring characters.

We passed four days at Fontainebleau. Several sickened and died, and in the
mean time neither Adrian nor any of our friends appeared. My own troop was
in commotion; to reach Switzerland, to plunge into rivers of snow, and to
dwell in caves of ice, became the mad desire of all. Yet we had promised to
wait for the Earl; and h